The Reunion Show - part 1
If you’re not 18 or older, blah,
blah, blah; you shouldn’t be here.
If you don’t like these types of
stories, don't kid yourself because you've made it this far into Nifty,
doh-doh bird.
Constructive criticisms are
welcome also at: mlogan6969@hotmail.com. If you would like
to join my Yahoo! group we'd love to have ya! You'll find it
at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/logans_lit/
Let’s get on with it.
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“Dr. Mr. Logan,
You are cordially invited to attend a
special presentation to your 10 year high school reunion…..”
No shit. I knew that this was
coming around soon, especially since I know that 1987 plus ten equals
1997. Hey, my time in government school wasn’t a complete
waste. But what in the hell was this “special presentation”
nonsense? Oh…..ok, here we go. “….have been selected with
seven other of your alumni to participate in a reality television
program regarding the lives and times of you and your fellow
classmates. If you choose to decline this invitation….”
Now why would I do such a thing as
that? Why would I decline the chance to spend five weeks,
according to the invite, with some of the coolest people I’ve ever
known? Well let me think about it. Hmm, from eighth until
the middle of my tenth grade year I was shy and pretty dorky. I
had a few friends, or at least I thought I did. I mean people
were friendly to me, for the most part. A couple of the jocks,
one in particular, was just fucking cruel for a while. I had no
real way to defend myself, being 5’11 weighing 115 pounds. What
was I going to do, stab him to death with my skeleton? Then about
halfway through my sophomore year I saw how much fun everyone else was
having and decided, literally in one moment, to quit the shy
shit. I became the “class clown.” Or more appropriately,
the nerd who thinks/wishes he’s “one of them” but really is just a nerd
being a goofball. But hey, at least I had more fun that
way. I got to choose when people would laugh with (at) me.
And I supposedly had more “friends.” Of course, I never really
knew why people who seemed to have had a great time around me in school
would not invite me to anything outside of it. Never to the
movies or the mall, or just to hang out. Talk about the tears of
a clown.
One good thing that happened to me in
my junior year was I discovered how great it was to have an
audience. Oh baby! I auditioned for “Grease” and actually
requested that I play Eugene. Surprise! I got the
part. I’d hitch up my drawers and walk really goofy (bitches,
this was before Erkle, let me tell you) and talk using this really
dorky voice. It cracked everyone up in the cast, jocks included,
and so I actually felt good about myself. The audience loved it
too, and I fed off of that on opening night. Dude, I was a giant
ham and as a result got some of the biggest applause during the curtain
call. Ding! I loved being a showman! What a fucking
drama queen I became. Another good thing that happened during
that year was that my chief tormentor, Scott (did I mention his name
before?) went off to some other school. That’s ok. By this
time I had become such a smart ass that nobody really picked on me
anymore. Go figure.
The next year, my senior year, a
classmate was killed in a car accident within the first month of the
year. I realized then that I was wound up a little too tight and
really needed to become more laid back than I was because hey, life
could litterally end before you knew it and we need to live it
up. Right? Right! I started drinking then. Not
like, drinking, but going out
with friends and mixing whatever crap was in their folks’ liquor
cabinets. I loved to be buzzed, but kept it in moderation.
It was also then that my former chief tormentor, Scott, returned to my
school. Goody gumdrops! Well, I had a bit more confidence
now. Even though he hadn’t really bothered me since the 9th
grade, the memories were still there. I just knew I’d stay away
from him and things would be cool. It’s funny because at one time
in 9th or 10th grade I’d cringe if I saw him coming down the hall
towards me. Not anymore. Once I was a senior I’d just look
past him; sometimes I’d even nod his way. Bee-yoch!
Anyhow, spring of my senior year
rolls around and the musical is announced: “L’il Abner.”
Who the frig has heard of that? I hadn’t. Of course I tried
out, and got the part of Marryin’ Sam. Mahhhh Goodness! The
third lead, I had two solos and two duets. Plus I got a chance to
really ham it up in this one. By the time it was over people told
me it should be called “Marryin’ Sam” instead of “L’il Abner!”
Crazy asses. But I really did have a great time and I got to make
some really good friends that last quarter of my senior year.
They were the “guys in the band” and they were just genuine, fun guys
to be with.
I must admit that I overdid it when
it came to relationships. I guess because I went for so many
years without having friends who initiated contact with me that I was
really immature in that department. I started to get jealous of
some of the guys when they didn’t invite me somewhere, even though they
did most of the time, but I thought I could deal with it. During
the graduation ceremonies I was an absolute basket case. Being a
member of the school chorus my self and another classmate, a close girl
friend of mine, dedicated the song "Somewhere" from West Side Story to
the girl who was killed in the car accident earlier in the year.
Oye vey! I had to stare at a sign at the back of the gym wall to
concentrate so I wouldn’t cry. When I got back to my seat I
noticed that most of the guys in the band, whom I sat with, were wiping
tears from their eyes.
Things were great! I graduated,
knew what I wanted to do in life, finally had some friends that I felt
had normal friendship feelings for me. Then I blew it. One
night I got really shit-faced and started doing the “how come you don’t
always ask me out,” namby-pamby, whiney girl bullshit thing. That
was the beginning of the end of a lot of those more current
friendships. As I said before I wasn’t mature enough to handle
relationships. Oh, and one of the reasons that I lost a bunch of
my friends was because on that night of supreme drunkenness when the
whisky muscle was real hard, I blubbered to a guy that I thought was my
best friend that I actually had feelings for him. Sob, sob,
sob. Boy, how word spread. Not in an annoying, gossipy way,
but really just amongst the guys. I really think that they were
the only ones who really knew, because the revelation came out, so to
speak, several weeks after graduation. Slowly but surely I was
phased out of that group. I don’t think it was a great big
surprise to anyone who found out. Friggin’ my favorite singer (at
that time) was Barbra Streisand. Surprise! And while I
wasn’t exactly fem, I was really damn skinny, and I liked
musicals. Perfect ingredients for a gay man. LOL.
So now that you know some of my
his-story (to hell with modern feminism) let’s review that list of
“academic alumni” (please – fellow classmates). There’s Deanna
Fuller, reputed to have two abortions after her big-footed jock of a
boyfriend supposedly knocked her up. Poor girl. I guess she
never heard of the “pull out” method. Dumbass. Then Tracy
Matheson, annoying pain in the ass, she. True to the roots, she
was a blonde. Here’s Samantha Alvarez. I don’t really
remember her. Jessica Simpson – no dummies, not that one.
Mike Logan, formerly a gay nerd, currently a gay stud (yeah, right);
Freddie Black, didn’t really know him. Then there’s Scott Dell,
former tormentor…..and finally Charlie Ross, reputed to have had sex
with the biology teacher. Lucky her.
Wait…..no fucking way. Fuck,
fuck, fuckingfuck! Scott Dell? Scott Dell??!! Yep, it
was him! God Damnit! Yeah, this ought to be really
interesting.
I laughed, embarrassed, as all of my
bad memories of him come flooding back. In seventh grade I had
just moved to the area and he was in a class of mine. I didn’t
know him from Adam (no, not you, Adam) and all of a sudden when the
teacher’s not looking he just slugs me in the back and says if I do
anything about I’m history. Always did shit like that.
Threw my books, busted my pencils, whatever. In 9th grade gym
class he ran across the room and dove feet first at me, knocking my own
feet out from under me. Shit like that. Just fucking
tormented me. And now I had to spend 5 fucking weeks with
him. Fuck a duck! Why me?
Give me strength, I prayed.
Yes, I’m a praying man. A Christian at that. What? A
gay Christian? How can that be? Well, I’m a Christian man
who happens to be gay. What can I do. It’s not like I’m a
member of NAMBLA or the democrat party. I’m a conservative guy
but I don’t believe that my religious views should be pushed on to
other people. How fucking annoying is that?! So I prayed
for strength and the next morning it dawned on me that hey, it had been
ten years and I had certainly changed quite a bit, surely these other
people (Scott included) could have too. I decided that it might
be fun and interesting to see some of these people again. I sent
the response back with the “will be attending” box checked…..and kept
my fingers crossed.
Within a few weeks I received some
paperwork in the mail, basically contract crap. We were to be
herded into a really cool renovated warehouse apartment on Ponce De
Leon right near midtown Atlanta. Fine with me. Everyone
knows that midtown is the stomping grounds for the gay man in
Atlanta. I knew the apartments because I had driven by them many
a time going to any one of the gay bars downtown. Not that I was
a ho, mind you. In fact I was still a virgin at that point…..at
least my back door was. I enjoyed going to bars and dancing with
other guys but I wouldn’t go home with any of them. I mean hell,
I was just 27 but smart enough to know about the whole AIDS
thing. Plus I was never really into the one-night stand
scene. I had no stupid pick up lines, though I had heard a few
really bad ones. I just liked hanging with people, so I’d go to
the Cove, Rhett's, or wherever, with groups of friends.
I should say this though. Other
than the few guys in the band who found out about me that night 10
years before the reunion, nobody in my personal life knew about my
being gay. I guess I figured it was none of their business.
My family didn’t know, which was really silly because they wouldn’t
have cared anyway. This I’ve discovered painfully late and I
blame myself – but more on this later. I went to church so there
were the obvious friendships there, and people that I wouldn’t
tell. But I’ve never been the type of guy to let people into my
private life. It just ain’t their fuckin' business!
I guess I should tell you a bit more
about me in 1997. I had gone to a small conservative (of course)
college and majored in history; after I graduated with my bachelor’s I
went to another small college, this one in Tennessee, and got a
Master’s in it. What can I say; I love history. My focus
was American history and I was able to land a job at a private school
in the suburbs teaching, guess what…..history! At the time of the
reunion I had been teaching for four years and really loved my job – my
career. But just like man can’t live on bread alone, he can’t
live alone forever, either. I needed companionship. I had a
great time with my friends, but none of them was husband
material. And I wanted a husband. Not like marriage
ceremony type, but a life partner/lover/blah, blah, blah.
Back to the story…..all eight of us
would be living in a really kick ass apartment, which I knew would have
to be pretty big to sleep 8 for five weeks. We had to agree that
if we left the building or the group to be on our own that we had to
inform one of the producers so that they could tail us with a
cameraman. Whatever. I guess this is what “The Real World”
is like, I told myself. It could be fun, I told myself.
Hell, I guess I was still a bit nervous meeting, or becoming
re-acquainted with, my seven other roomies. I signed all of the
paperwork and sent it back in; I was actually starting to look forward
to it – nervousness aside.
What would Deanna, Tracy, Jessica,
Samantha, Freddie, Charlie and Scott think of me now? Hell, fuck
that. What would I think of them?
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Well, gay men, that’s it for part
one. Tell me what you think.
Mark
mlogan6969@hotmail.com